Have we been over stated AirPlay's usefulness

I have really been looking forward to streaming my mkv's to my aTV3 using AirPlay in Mountain Lion. The thought of using my uncompressed/higher bitrate mkv's instead of compressed/lower bitrate mp4's seemed like it would be a great thing to have. Then it occurred to me, AirPlay transcodes everything to h.264 on the fly for the aTV anyway. So are you really gaining anything over transcoding it yourself? In fact, might it not yield a lower quality transcode by having to do it on the fly rather than a High Profile Handbrake transcode?

The only advantage I see right now is not having to have 2 sets of movie files, mkv and mp4.

I have really been looking forward to streaming my mkv's to my aTV3 using AirPlay in Mountain Lion. The thought of using my uncompressed/higher bitrate mkv's instead of compressed/lower bitrate mp4's seemed like it would be a great thing to have. Then it occurred to me, AirPlay transcodes everything to h.264 on the fly for the aTV anyway. So are you really gaining anything over transcoding it yourself? In fact, might it not yield a lower quality transcode by having to do it on the fly rather than a High Profile Handbrake transcode?

The only advantage I see right now is not having to have 2 sets of movie files, mkv and mp4.

Am I off-base here?

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your absolutle right. but AirPlay is more about screen sharing for Mountain Lion, as you can already share video to an AppleTV from your MacBook, with Lion.

Is it really Airplay streaming, or is it just screen sharing? Will you be able to put a video on the TV and use the MBA for something else?

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Mirroring... (Screen Sharing), I think the OP is a bit confuse of what it's really doing, the Airplay is NOT optimal to watch those MKVs, the audio is transmitted as stereo and the encoding will degrade the quality.

This feature is more targeted to Presentation, casual Youtube or home video sharing, not for high end HD video. For that Apple want you to use iTunes.

For those who don't like the Jail that Apple want us in, we use stuff like Plex, or XBMC for those HD Media

Mirroring... (Screen Sharing), I think the OP is a bit confuse of what it's really doing, the Airplay is NOT optimal to watch those MKVs, the audio is transmitted as stereo and the encoding will degrade the quality.

This feature is more targeted to Presentation, casual Youtube or home video sharing, not for high end HD video. For that Apple want you to use iTunes.

For those who don't like the Jail that Apple want us in, we use stuff like Plex, or XBMC for those HD Media

Click to expand...

this its called Airplay Mirroring as in Mirroring what you see on you mac on your TV

Airplay is NOT optimal to watch those MKVs, the audio is transmitted as stereo and the encoding will degrade the quality.

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Completely agree. In comparison to ripping it in high profile the encoding from airplay is wickedly nerfed down since it requires encoding in real time to be smooth. hence a hi profile HB encode maybe taking twice the actual running time whereas Airplay needs to do it in real time.

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